Sunday in Lent 2

St Paul works himself up to a rather glorious affirmation in 1 Corinthians today.

For all things are yours
...
and you belong to Christ,
and Christ belongs to God.

This could be taken in a disastrously anthopocentric and imperialist manner ("if everything is mine I can do what I want with it") but the affirmation that all things are ours is tempered in the reminder of whose we are.

I choose instead to view it as gracious gift and profound reality. We are part of all things and all things are part of us. On the physical level alone we know of nothing in the universe that did not come from the same infinitely compressed seeming nothing that burst forth in the Big Bang. The farthest reaches of galaxies beyond galaxies and I came from the same "place" and "moment."

When we speak of God's creative action ("and God said... and there was"), we speak of that creative Word by whom all things were made and in whom all things subsist. Each portion of creation is interrelated, yet we go further in faith to affirm that all parts of creation are given to each other as gift. The world is given to us and we are given to the world, as gift, as trust.

Clearly, with that gift comes responsibility. So that which is given to us is not just "ours" to use and abuse at our whim. It is also, and always and ultimately, God's. As are we.

It's all rather amazing to contemplate.


Here is Jesus on family values:


The criterion in this passage is not my dogma but my doing what God calls me to do. Micah 6.8 and the Summary of the Law (from Leviticus and Deuteronomy) combined with the New Commandment pretty well sum up what it means to do the will of God. This is all wrapped up in love.

Notice how Jesus' family description sounds like a single-parent family too. Very sloppy of him. Doesn't he know it takes two parents of opposite genders?

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

--the BB